TALKING WITH . . .
Talking With . . . reinforces that belief. I don’t know how the playwright, Jane Martin, created these 11 monologues. I don’t even know if “Jane Martin” exists. According to theater lore, the manuscript for Talking With . . . simply appeared on the doorstep of the Actors Theater of Louisville one morning in 1982. Despite the play’s success, the author has never been identified.
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Sure, it’s a gimmick. The format makes Talking With . . . an automatic feminist theater piece, ideal for the premiere production of Heroes Inc. Ensemble, which says it is dedicated to “new plays and new directorial talent, specifically those of women.”
“Fifteen Minutes” is a wistful reverie by an actress (Josette DiCarlo) who says she would like to read each audience member’s biography–to even the score–before she steps out on the stage and engages in “a little lacerating self-exposure.” “Dragons” features a woman in labor (Andrea Tashiro) who knows she is going to give birth to a deformed baby. And Sharon Burke provides a disturbing ending to the play with “Marks,” about a nice, obedient woman who, after her husband leaves her, is slashed across the face when she refuses sex with a man who has picked her up. Instead of being ashamed of the scar, however, she comes to like the way it symbolizes an experience that changed her life, and she has her body tattooed with designs to represent the others who have “marked” her in some way.
Others came closer: Tami Hinz projected well the harmless eccentricities of an old woman in “Lamps” (although a malfunctioning lamp broke her concentration on opening night). Josette DiCarlo seemed to embody the loneliness and weary resignation of an aging actress in “Fifteen Minutes.” And Sharon Burke’s rendition of the tattooed lady in “Marks” was strong, even though she never moved from her chair.
